I disagree with your first sentence. You don’t have to be irrational and frothing at the mouth to be angry. And if you’re not angry at the injustices in the world and the people who would make them worse, what are you? Complacent? I hope not.
Well-earned schadenfreude is fine for a while. Maybe it’s time to move on, to wave at Trump from the rear-view mirror and focus on the assholes who are still in front of us.
I AM grateful that voters in the 18 to 29 range showed up. I’ve heard the figure “27%”–as in 27% of eligible voters ages 18-29 voted in this midterm election. (I don’t have a solid citation on this yet.)
27% is certainly better than less-than-27%. But it’s not the tidal wave some are implying it is. (Imagine if 50% of eligible 18-29 voters had shown up! 65%! 80%! If this had occurred we wouldn’t have to be hearing about the deplorable plans of Kevin McCarthy or Mitch McConnell.)
Anyway, thanks to the 27%.
I agree with all your reasoning about generational anger and the effects it may well have on our future, even the immediate future. If a large chunk of a generation believe that the American system can NEVER work for them, that will indeed be seismic.
I would like to see more than 27% of them voting in 2024, though. They could make a real difference in their own prospects by throwing out the pro-oligarchy Republicans and raising up those Democrats who care about an economy that works for everyone (not to mention, who care about climate change and other crucial issues).
I can dig it. But if we’re calling these youngsters Generation Z, then where do we go from there? Double up the letters and start over, AA? Add a symbol or something, Z#? #Z?
Oh, what a corner we’ve painted ourselves into.
I’ve been wondering about that, too.
(It’s just another blow the generation-younger-than -Z will have to bear, I guess. Excluded from history due to failure to think ahead enough to leave them a label!)
Yeah, you reminded me of something else that annoys me (I’m absolutely not saying you did or do this, but it was a keyword trigger): people who seem to think that any emotion besides fear and anger means electoral complacency, so feel that they must balance (or outright refute the value of) any good news with dire warnings about how much is still fucked up. Every. Single. Time.
I still say that encouraging constant fear and anger is a conservative thing, and still not a healthy way to live.
Very interesting. I wonder what the percentage was in 2018? If it was like 25% then yeah, big whoop. But if it was like 9%, then 27% this midterm would be a huge jump. (Obviously I’m making these numbers up.)
Without context to assess 27%, I’ll agree that my first reaction is it doesn’t seem like a big number.
EDIT: Holy shit, Google says the 18 to 29 turnout in 2018 was 36%, up from 20% the previous midterm. Looks like it then went down from 36% to 27% this election, but still above the 20% it had been before Trump.
Generation Yuzz.
So it’s words next.
(BTW: I had an aunt who used that word when it referred to plural humans: “I thought you said yuzz were going to the park.”
Sorry, I was referencing this.
It was words before, and it will be words again.
Oh, in that light I guess I’m on board till we run out again.
“Generation Z” is a placeholder, like how we used to call Millennials “Generation Y”. Sooner or later we’ll all settle on a better name.
Generation X never got a name.
Watching crypto just implode in the same week Elon Musk exposes himself as a fraud, during a midterm in which the outcome is Donald Trump & Marco Rubio vs Mitch McConnell & Ron DeSantis while the D’s retain the Senate and, maybe, has a tied House…
… I’ll be in my bunk.
Zoomers.
Fuck those guys. Wait. Am I one of those guys?
The boundary between baby boom and gen X keeps bouncing around. I think I was a boomer last I checked but I haven’t always been.
Gen Jones.
Gen Yinz. I like the sound of it.